What Happens When You Sleep

Hello everyone. We spend (or at least are supposed to spend)
a third of our day sleeping. Sleep is much more than a passive activity;
we need that time to clear our minds and restore our bodies. If we don’t get enough rest each night, we
become cognitively impaired, just as if we had been drinking alcohol. There are four stages of sleep, and it takes
90-110 minutes to complete an entire cycle, which translates into about four cycles per
night. Stage 1 happens during the first 5-10 minutes
of the sleep cycle. This is when it is easiest to be awoken and
your muscles begin to relax. This is also when you are most likely to experience
a hypnagogic jerk. With hypnagogic jerks, your muscles might
suddenly twitch, or you might act out a dream like falling off a cliff, falling from the
sky, or tripping. Why the falling? Researchers aren’t really sure about that. But it’s more likely to happen when you’re
overtired, sleep-deprived, or stressed, which causes your brain to enter into sleep
cycles more aggressively, but your body hasn’t caught up. This is also the reason why you might experience
predormital sleep paralysis, where you cannot move or speak if you remain or become awake. Stage 2 takes up half of the sleep cycle,
lasting around 45-50 minutes. If you are woken up at this time, you will
likely feel very disoriented. Breathing becomes relaxed and slowed as the
body temperature drops, giving your heart a bit of a break. Neural activity also decreases during this
time, as the body prepares for the next phase of the cycle. Stage 3 is when deep sleep occurs for about
20 minutes and the body is given the chance to restore itself. Brain waves become slow and steady, muscle
and tissues are repaired, and various hormones are secreted around the body. Waste management systems in the brain become
very active, flushing out that which impairs cognitive function. Despite being the time when most rejuvenation
happens, this is also the phase in which you start dreaming,
because dreaming is a way for your brain to sort out things. It needs to reevaluate and process before
it can file them away as memories. This is also the phase where you might talk
in your sleep because your body is in deep stages of sleep,
but there’s still enough muscle tone to produce sounds or movements that may accompany dream. As for sleep walking, it happens because you’re
coming out of sleep just enough for your body to move, but not enough for your brain to
be awake. It is incredibly hard to wake someone up during
this phase, as anyone who has dealt with a sleepwalker can attest to. Rapid Eye Movement (REM) is the final stage
in the cycle, lasting about 20 minutes. Though the eyes are closed, the eyes move
very quickly underneath the eyelid. At this stage, brain activity is high and
the bulk of dreaming takes place. You might also experience sleep paralysis
at this stage, known as hypnopompic or postdormital sleep paralysis. This episode of sleep paralysis is basically
the opposite of happens with hypnagogic jerks where your brain wakes up before the paralysis
that accompanies deep sleep goes away. Basically, you may feel like you can’t breathe. Many people describe it as an elephant sitting
on their chest. That’s because all of the muscles that control
your breathing except for the diaphragm are still paralyzed.

The sleeping process / sleep stages / sleep stage.We spend (or at least are supposed to spend) a third of our day sleeping. Sleep is much more than a passive activity; we need that time to clear our minds and restore our

I once had a dream in which I walked into the forest and on the other side I saw a little shack and there was a family inside but they weren't normal people and then I tried communicating with them but they didn't reply and then I woke up and a couple days later or something I had the same dream but the family were actually humans and I think I was able to communicate with them.

Someone once asked me if I had a banana in my pocket or if I was just excited to see them. It shocked and confused them when I took an actual banana out of my pocket! 😂 Everyone, please watch my little nature videos. There is no talking in them. Shhh!